Japan Quake Toll Hits 1,800; Hundreds More Still Missing

By Sam JamesonLos Angeles TimesTOKYO

The western port city of Kobe, Japan, remained virtually paralyzed today
in the wake of the 7.2-magnitude earthquake that killed more than 1,800
people, sent as many as 150,000 seeking refuge and laid waste assurances
that modern construction technology protects city dwellers in Japan from
major seismic damage.

In what Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama called Japan's most devastating
tremor since the Great Tokyo Earthquake of 1923, police today put the death
toll at 1,812, with 996 missing and 6,367 injured. Most of the dead
perished in their homes as the quake struck shortly before dawn
Tuesday.

Railway, water, gas, telephone and electric services were ruptured.
Damaged tollways also were closed, and roads leading into the disaster area
were clogged with traffic or closed off by police. More than 120,000 of the
city's 1.5 million people sought shelter overnight in public buildings and
unheated school gymnasiums as the temperature dropped below freezing
overnight.

Early today, authorities discovered a leak in a 20,000-ton liquid
petroleum gas storage tank in Hyogo and urged 70,000 residents in two
districts of the city to leave their homes.

And 34,000 residents of two man-made islands were left isolated by
damage to bridges linking them to the main section of Kobe.

No earthquake had struck any major Japanese urban center since 1948,
when a 7.3-magnitude quake in the prefecture of Fukui killed 3,895
people.

Estimates of material damage Tuesday were in the tens of billions of
dollars. In a news conference televised nationwide, Murayama pledged the
government's full efforts to restore normality to Kobe and its
environs.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Kozo Igarashi said Murayama will visit the
devastated area Thursday. He also said the government would employ rescue
and recovery techniques that its Construction Ministry experts learned in
Los Angeles while studying the city's earthquake that occurred one year ago
to the day.

Army troops were dispatched to help rescue nearly 1,000 people believed
to be trapped in the debris of collapsed buildings, and firefighters were
brought in from 75 cities as far away as Tokyo, 270 miles northeast of
Kobe. The soldiers also were distributing fresh water and instant
noodles.

American help was on its way, President Clinton announced Tuesday in Los
Angeles, which he visited to mark the anniversary of the 6.7-magnitude
quake. "I have ordered a high-level team that includes representatives of
the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of
Transportation to leave for Japan shortly to see if anything we learned
here can be helpful to them there."

More than 9,000 homes and buildings were severely damaged or destroyed.
Fires that continued to burn into the morning of the second day leveled
entire blocks of the city, as firefighters were forced to pump water from
rivers. In addition to the storage tank trouble, gas leaks were reported at
1,400 locations. Landslides occurred in rural mountainous areas nearby.

Although the biggest area of fire devastation - a swath of about six
city blocks - contained wooden homes built after the end of World War II a
half-century ago, fires also erupted in concrete buildings.

Elevated expressways and railways, including the 130-mph Tokyo-Fukuoka
Bullet train, were closed down by cave-ins and ruptures. Tuesday was the
first time since the Bullet Line started operations in 1964 that the
superspeed railway had been crippled. Trains from Tokyo were operating only
as far as Kyoto, on one end. Service from Fukuoka on Kyushu Island was
available only to Okayama on the other end.

The earthquake struck at 5:46 a.m. Tuesday, 14 minutes before the Bullet
Line trains started runs that normally transport 360,000 passengers.

Twelve trains derailed on elevated sections of track, and at least one
station collapsed, wiping out an access street beneath it. But there were
no reports of subway damage, and nearby domestic and international airports
both continued to operate.

The Transportation Ministry in Tokyo asked Japan's three major airlines
to add flights from Tokyo to points beyond Osaka to plug partially the gap
in the key national transportation network. Repairs to extend the operating
portion of the line from Tokyo to Osaka were expected to take about a week,
but the rest of the disruption could continue for at least two months,
railways officials said.